The Crimson Tide got a big emotional lift with the return of
Davidson, who did not travel with the team here due to the death
of his girlfriend last weekend in Atlanta.

The 6-10 senior center recorded double-doubles in the final two
games.

"I told our team that it's still November. We've got a long
season ahead of us, but I couldn't be prouder of our team,"
Alabama coach Mark Gottfried said. "This is one of those
gut-check games. We were playing well early. They made a run
on us. They came out at the start of the second half and had a
little more energy than we did, made some shots. And we had to
dig down."

Trailing, 49-44, Alabama went on an 18-2 run to take a 62-51
lead with 3:25 to play. A 6-8, 265-pound forward, Hendrix had
eight points in the game-breaking surge.

Xavier (3-1) battled back from an 11-point deficit behind Johnny
Wolf, who hit back-to-back 3-pointers to close it to 32-31 at
halftime.

The Musketeers forged ahead and took their biggest lead, 40-34,
early in the second half on 3-pointers by Stanley Burrell and
Josh Duncan.

Gee, voted the tournament MVP, led a surge that closed the
deficit to 44-43, but a 3-pointer by Wolf extended the margin to
49-44, leading to the decisive run.

"We played great as a team, and we just got it done," Gee said.
"It feels great to win MVP. I didn't come in here expecting to
win MVP, I was just thinking about us coming down here and
winning the tournament, and that's what we did. I'm proud of
our team and how hard everybody played."

Duncan scored 14 points and Wolf added 13 for Xavier, which shot
just 33 percent (21-of-64) from the field.

"I think we beat a very good team," Gottfried said. "They're a
veteran team. They've been on the road, they've been in these
situations, they responded. You knew they weren't going to go
away even when we got up on them early in the first half, so it
was a great win from that perspective."